Law enforcement officers face numerous challenges on a daily basis. From active shooter situations to routine traffic stops, law enforcement professionals need different tools and materials for different situations. In an active shooter situation, law enforcement professionals need assault weapons, ammunition, and medical supplies with no delay. Even in events as common as a daily routine traffic stop, a law enforcement professional can find themselves in unexpected circumstances that require them to make split second decisions and have the resources associated with those decisions readily available to them.
To be prepared for the unexpected, these considerations require law enforcement professionals to be well organized not only on a personal scale, but also organized as a team. Presently, it is common for law enforcement professionals to use in-car organizers that are mounted at a passenger location on the front seat of their vehicle. An in-car organizer of this type is substandard for a variety of reasons. One such reason is that law enforcement is an equipment intensive job, meaning there are tools and/or forms for just about all activities in which a law enforcement professional engages. Because in-car organizers do not generally have specific locations for specific articles (e.g., ammunition, deterrent sprays, medical supplies, paperwork, etc), they become cluttered which limits fluency from officer to officer, may change the manner in which they are used, as well as contributes to making it difficult for a law enforcement professional to rapidly find items that are needed. Another such reason is that the passenger location on the front seat of a law enforcement vehicle that these organizers currently utilize is often needed when a law enforcement professional that is training another officer who is driving the vehicle or is needed for transporting a civilian. This necessitates the in-car organizer to be removed from the front seat and placed either in the back seat (e.g., often used for transporting prisoners) or in the trunk (i.e., a cargo space) where it is not designed to be used/secured). This dramatically reduces the usefulness of the organizer due to reasons such as the organizer and its contents being tossed around by movement of the vehicle and/or other items being place in and/or on top of the organizer. Still another such reason is that there is not a standardized in-car organizer and the manner in which in-car organizers are stocked will vary from person-to-person. This contributes to making it difficult for a law enforcement professional to readily find items that are needed when seeking items in a car that is not their own (e.g., during a stand-off confrontation where a law enforcement professional has taken cover behind a vehicle of another law enforcement professional).
Another type of existing organizer is one that is mounted to the bottom of the trunk (e.g., in the form of a plastic bin that sit on the floor of the trunk), which results in loss of trunk space. These types of trunk floor located organizers invariably end up with other articles being stored on top of the organizer. This is highly inefficient if an officer has to unload their trunk just to gain access to the articles in the organizer. Also, these types of organizers are susceptible to undesired shifting during movement of the vehicle when not fixedly mounted in place (which is often the case). Due to the hard working nature of a law enforcement professional's vehicle, it is common for contents in the trunk to shift or even be turned over. In life threatening situations or in times when bodily injury is occurring or is imminent, a law enforcement professional has to respond to such situations quickly, which requires taking curves as fast as possible, decelerating and accelerating at extremes, and sometimes causing their vehicles to leave the ground. In the daily use of an unsecured organizer in the trunk of the vehicle, it is a waste of valuable time to have to reorganize articles in an organizer that have become disorganized due to the organizer having flipped over or shifted during vehicle use.
‘Go Bags’ are also very common with law enforcement professionals. A ‘Go Bag’ is basically a self made bag by each individual law enforcement professional containing what a particular law enforcement professional thinks is vital to their survival and the survival of their peers in case of a critical or life-threatening situation. The typical Go Bag contains supplies such as extra ammunition and severe trauma related medical supplies. The problem with this concept is that each bag is different depending on the way the officer makes and organizes it. There are several different options for bags out there and no two brands are exactly alike. The other problem with this is that a bag can be stored anywhere in a vehicle (e.g., in the cabin or in the trunk). In high stress and life threatening situations, seconds count, which means there is no time to dig or sift through someone else's vehicle to find what you need to save a life.
During day-to-day operations, the trunk of a law enforcement vehicle can become cluttered and disorganized. As previously noted, law enforcement professionals are frequently confronted with high speed driving, including quick acceleration and braking and taking curves very quickly. During these movements, a Go Bag can become lost in the cabin or trunk and not readily available when it is needed the most. A Go Bag can be kept on the front passenger seat of the vehicle or in the trunk. However, an ability to immediately locate a Go Bag can be compromised when it is moved from a preferred location (e.g., on the front seat) to make room for a fellow officer or civilian.
Undesirably, when a law enforcement professional does not have a means for organizing their equipment, it can readily become scattered throughout the passenger cabin and/or trunk of their vehicle. Therefore, an organizer that can be securely mounted at a location in a cargo space (e.g., trunk) of a vehicle in a manner allowing ready access to known location of articles stored therein would be advantageous, desirable and useful. Additionally this space is currently unutilized by any other equipment or organizer.